Broken Frontier

This week sees the UK release of director Matthew Vaughan’s much-anticipated Kick-Ass movie based on the comic book by Mark Millar and John Romita Jr. that asked the question “What if a teenager really did try and become a super-hero in a real world scenario?”  To accompany the film Titan Books have released Kick-Ass: Creating the Comic, Making the Movie, a 176-page guide to the Kick-Ass franchise on both the printed page and the big screen. Broken Frontier takes a look between the covers…

It’s no great secret that movie tie-in books are often eminently disposable affairs – hastily-packaged, ultimately forgettable fluff pieces that scarcely justify the shelf space they inhabit or the woodland that was murdered in their name. With that in mind picking one up is often something to be approached with the utmost trepidation. So it was more than a pleasant surprise when initially flicking through the pages of Kick-Ass: Creating the Comic, Making the Movie to discover just how much input the creators, cast and crew had provided to this finished product.

Our host for the main body of the text is Kick-Ass creator Mark Millar. Millar, as comics fans know, is a writer who has managed the unlikely feat of making ardent self-promotion a most endearing personality trait. He’s on good form here, as ever, flitting from infectious enthusiasm for his own work to that of the wider ensemble of contributors to the movie, but also throwing in those refreshingly honest thoughts that not everyone would be able to get away with in the circumstances. His quip, based on a line from Raymond Chandler, that had the film not been an artistic success it would still have meant “free cash” for him is a fine example of that slightly incongruous mix of irreverent, yet genial, banter that permeates the book and makes it such an engaging read.

Millar’s discussion of the parallel development of Kick-Ass the comic and Kick-Ass the movie gives a fascinating account of a quite unique adventure in bringing characters from the four-color pages to the movie theaters. He details the early genesis of Kick-Ass with amusing anecdotal asides (and trust me when I say that its “secret origin” is quite unlike anything you will have heard before...) and is extremely candid about the symbiotic relationship between the development process of movie and graphic novel as well as any storytelling alterations between the two.

Perhaps it’s the fact that Kick-Ass was produced without the dictates of a major studio that allows Kick-Ass: Creating the Comic, Making the Movie to be such an open and frank discussion of the intricacies, setbacks and considerations behind an endeavour of this nature. Or perhaps it’s just Mark Millar’s natural upfront exuberance that colors the entire reading experience. Whatever the reason, the degree of transparency and, often brutal, honesty on show here is refreshing indeed. Interview sections give the additional thoughts of cast members including Nicolas Cage (Big Daddy), Aaron Johnson (Dave Lizewski), Christopher Mintz-Plasse (Red Mist) and Chloe Moretz (Hit-Girl) while Kick-Ass artist John Romita Jr., director Matthew Vaughan, screenwriter Jane Goldman and representations from the costume and set design departments all chip in with commentary about their contribution to the whole.

The book also contains a number of informative behind-the-scenes documentation that flesh out the project’s journey from Millar and Romita Jr.’s fevered imaginations to potential blockbuster cinematic release. From the physical (Millar’s early plot scribbles and Romita’s initial character sketches) to the electronic (reproductions of Millar and Vaughan’s e-mail discussions and Chloe Moretz’s blog entries) these provide the reader with nuggets of insight into the creative decisions and thought processes behind the ongoing project in progress.

From a more aesthetic viewpoint the book is lavishly illustrated with production stills, behind-the-scenes photographs and sketches and finished artwork from John Romita Jr. From a layout perspective Titan have done a splendid job in making this an appealing and handsome package.

In terms of the broadest possible appeal Kick-Ass: Creating the Comic, Making the Movie succeeds ably in walking a fine line. It’s accessible to those encountering the characters for the first time through the movie without being a superficial treatment to those fanboys in the know. Those hoping for Cinefex-style analysis of the film should look elsewhere but if you’re after a user-friendly guide to the development and production of both strands of the Kick-Ass franchise, replete with supplemental materials to illustrate and packed with extended soundbites, then Titan have provided the perfect complement to the big screen antics of Dave Lizewski, Hit-Girl and co. Certainly not the usual average shallow movie tie-in!

Kick-Ass: Creating the Comic, Making the Movie is published by Titan Books priced £17.99.